Infographic reveals potential of crowdfunding for nonprofit fundraising goals

Welcome back to the Miratel blog as today I conclude with a third post this week about nonprofit fundraising results and trends thus far in 2014. Earlier in the week we looked at how results might be shaping up compared with 2013 and yesterday dug a little deeper into the success of crowdfunding over the last few years.

Today I wanted to share what I found to be a fascinating infographic that was created by Kimbia who operate the crowdfunding campaign Give Local America, who have had excellent results in 2014. The infographic appears below in full at the foot of the post.

While it must be stressed that the data within is related specifically to the organization that I’ve mentioned it certainly provides some very telling information about exactly who participates in crowdfunding ventures and I hope delivers information that might dismiss some of your preconceived notions about the platform itself. Some of the demographics and information related to them in my opinion reinforced just how viable a method crowfunding can now be for specific nonprofit fundraising opportunities and events.

The graphic tends to speak for itself but I wanted to highlight just a few of the findings contained within;

• A remarkable 49 percent of all supporters were aged 55 or above with the largest proportion (24 percent) aged between 55-64. This dispels the concept that many hold that this method of fundraising appeals only to those that are much younger.
• Strong ratios of 69 percent and 65 percent respectively are likely to be online transactors (those who conduct transactions online) and smartphone users. Both numbers fall short of cementing the idea that only a very technological-savvy/online audience propel crowdfunding.
• Per the data crowdfunding holds appeal across the spectrum when it comes to age, income, personal wealth and overall philanthropic tendencies. Once more countering many of the presumptions associated with the platform.

I hope that your organization is in the position to at least experiment on a limited scale with the idea of crowdfunding next year, I feel that it has very strong potential when partnered with certain types of event and goal fundraising initiatives.

One last thought in addition to some of the side-benefits that I touched upon yesterday is that crowdfunding provides a fantastic opportunity to ‘test the water’ and gauge interest in a particular cause based purely on the online word-of-mouth and viral capacity of your particular fundraising goal. At the very least a crowdfunding initiative that doesn’t quite lift off like you would hope still provides valuable information about what could be revised and improved upon.

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Miratel Solutions is a Toronto call centre, eBusiness, and letter shop mail house specializing in professional fundraising services including PCI compliant inbound telephone fundraising, outbound telephone fundraising, online fundraising, lottery fundraising services, donation processing and receipting and direct mail fundraising services. We are committed to our CSR business values in all our business decisions and advancing the missions of the nonprofits we proudly serve.